


Out of Nowhere

by TheSpiderThatKnowsThePlan



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Death, Fire, Immortality, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 21:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20478125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpiderThatKnowsThePlan/pseuds/TheSpiderThatKnowsThePlan
Summary: Pete doesn't know where he is, how he got there, or who the creature is that's tormenting him, but he should. And he will.





	Out of Nowhere

Out of nowhere, Pete finds himself rudely deposited on a set of concrete steps. He lands on his feet and unharmed, as usual, and he takes time to wonder if that counts as “rudely deposited”. He looks around and finds he’s in front of what looks to be an apartment building, not unlike the one at 123 Sesame Street. It has a green front door, and great cement bannisters on either side that sweep outward, seeming to welcome passersby into their fold.

The first thing he thinks is, _Hey, I was talking to someone._

As that thought dissipates like mist, Pete realizes that it’s morning, and he’s standing in a patch of sunlight. He hasn’t been in the sun in forever. He turns his face up to it, closes his eyes, and inhales deeply as the gentle rays warm his skin, which has somehow retained its golden hue through the years. He opens his eyes again and looks at the trees across the street, full and green, with the sun’s rays twinkling through the leaves. It’s something he hasn’t seen in a lifetime, at least.

He’s supposed to find someone, he realizes with a start. But who is it? He can see fragments of a name, like a word puzzle in one of those variety books his mother always liked so much, but it’s more like just a couple of block letters. One of them, he’s sure, is an “M”. He thinks he also can see an “R” and a “T”, and possibly an “O”, but it’s all so hazy he can’t put it together. Is it the same someone he was talking to before arriving here? He can’t be sure of that, either.

Maybe he ought to have a look around, see if anything about this place rings a bell.

He zips up his faded blue hoodie, shoves his hands in the pockets, and starts down the steps, only to stop short as he nearly collides with someone sitting there. Thank Christ for his quick reflexes. How did he not notice this… guy, from the general shape and appearance? Hear any shuffling against the concrete, hear him breathing or clearing his throat, anything?

Pete listens intently and studies the hunched form as he tiptoes around him. He (It?) has a newspaper open in front of him, but it doesn’t even rustle. For all his sharp focus and keen eyesight, Pete can’t read a single thing on the page.

Since the newspaper is a lost cause, Pete looks at the man. A sort of formless hat-thing sits on top of red-gold hair swept across an alabaster forehead, blocky black glasses, and… that’s it. There are no other features between the hairline and chin of the “man”. His face is as smooth as the shell of an egg.

Who is he looking for? Pete’s mind swirls. M, R, O, T… Torm? Tom? Could be Tom. Maybe Tron? He’s fairly sure about the “M”, rather than “N”, but he can’t help wishing it could be Tron. _Mrot? Mrto? Omtr?_ His mind churns with possibilities, no matter how ridiculous.

“Mort,” says a voice that slices through Pete’s thoughts like a greased-up machete, horribly beautiful but inhuman, like it could be anyone, “but we’re sure that’s wrong.” Pete jumps back as he notices the eggshell face has some vague features now. Too-blue eyes, like the sky on a cloudless day, with no whites or pupils, now burn into him from behind the glasses. “Think, Pete,” says the hideous cartoon mouth that’s now appeared, red and thick and almost formless, like a child drew it. “Yes, he did,” the thing drawls, stealing the image from Pete’s thoughts. “You made it.”

The shape stands, shorter than Pete but almost formless. Its clothes seem to jump and glitch, like video game animation gone wrong. Sometimes a blood-red sweater, sometimes a black leather jacket, sometimes blue denim, sometimes very slim and small, sometimes very wide and stocky. The eyes and glasses change endlessly, the shape of his mouth sometimes sexy, sometimes angry and scowling. There are sharp cheekbones, or a round, boyish face. One eye is sometimes smaller than the other, and Pete isn’t sure if that’s real or just the effects of this thing’s indecisive metamorphosing.

“You made this,” it says, the voice now singular—melodic and lovely, but haunting in a way Pete can’t place. “Do you really not even remember anymore? Am I really so lost in your memory?”

But Pete’s memory isn’t producing anything useful. It’s lost in the searing pain on the back of his neck, down his spine, up onto his scalp. He’s burning, and he knows it. The man—it’s definitely a man now, settled on a black fedora and a maroon cardigan, sparkling blue eyes and pale skin—holds up the newspaper, and the writing is as clear as day now. The daylight that’s finally caught up with him. It’s filling his mouth with fire, crackling in his ears, but the pain is faraway, removed from him, as he reads the obituary that’s right in front of his face.

_PATRICK MARTIN STUMPH_

“Martin,” the man says, but Pete remembers so clearly now, knows exactly why he’s here and whom he was supposed to find. This man. “You were thinking of me, talking to me, even though you think you weren’t. It’s always me, because you did this to me.” Patrick tosses the paper into the fire at Pete’s feet, and it blackens and curls up in the orange flames. “’Mort’ just means death, but I suppose that’s all the same to you, isn’t it, Pete?”

And Patrick walks away with Pete screaming his name after him.

“Patrick!” Pete cries out, his eyes flying open. He looks around, and realizes he’s still in his darkened room, the black, thick curtains drawn tight against the day. The sun hasn’t set yet; Pete can feel it’s still low in the sky. He leans over and peers at the crumpled body on his floor, the few drops of blood Pete had left in him still oozing from his neck.

He was pretty—small, pale, with blond hair—but the eyes were all wrong. Too dark. He wasn’t Patrick. They’re never Patrick. So, he simply made a meal of him, and wondered why he bothered.

Patrick is gone, has been for at least a hundred years or so. When he first learned of Pete’s affliction, he spent at least five years looking for a cure, then the next several begging for Pete to turn him, too, so they could be together. Pete was a coward, though, too afraid to curse Patrick this way, too afraid to see him feral in the moment of the kill, see those beautiful ocean eyes flood red with bloodlust, to possibly lose him to the demon and the hunger that came with immortality.

But also too afraid to die with Patrick—to age and suffer and go gentle into that good night.

Pete stayed, he visited, he refused to abandon his best friend and greatest love, until senility had set in. Then, Pete’s ageless beauty only served to further confuse Patrick about his own age, then cause him to become enraged when he regained himself and remembered his own age and what he felt Pete had done to him. He screamed at Pete to leave and never return, to take his cursed life and stupid melodramatic star-crossed bullshit and go fuck himself.

So, Pete stopped visiting, but he watched from afar as much as he could. Sometimes, Patrick would perk up, like he smelled something, sensed something, and would hobble to the window and mumble Pete’s name, like he knew his immortal friend was there. Then, he’d laugh and shake his head ruefully, and say how silly he was being, that Pete was long gone.

When human death came for Patrick, he said Pete’s name with his last breath. Pete heard it as clearly as if Patrick had whispered it right into his hear, and he smelled Patrick’s skin, his _essence_, as it drifted past him on its way to wherever truly good folks went when their bodies couldn’t hold them anymore.

“Patrick’s gone,” Pete whispers to the boy on his floor, whose brown eyes stare up from a sheet-white face. “I hoped maybe you were him, but none of you could ever be. There’s no more Patrick, and there never will be again. I think it’s time I accept it.” He nods to himself, then looks around his little room. “It’s time. Yeah.”

Pete walks over to the window and grabs the curtains. “I’m sorry. I’m coming.” With a deep, unnecessary breath to steel himself, he opens the curtains and welcomes the remaining daylight.

The fire starts in his chest this time, and the pain isn’t dull or removed. It’s searing, and he can feel it claiming his entrails, his groin, his heart, traveling up to his head. With that same breath his lungs hadn’t needed, he whispers, “Patrick,” and closes his eyes, waits for his ashes to scatter like confetti, and prays that his best friend and greatest love has forgiven him, and is waiting wherever he’s headed next.

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely based on a dream I had. It just kept nagging me until I wrote it down.


End file.
